$3 Million for New Centers and Pilot Projects in Translational and Personalized Genomics |
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November 9, 2010,
Volume 57, No. 11
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The Penn Genome Frontiers Institute (PGFI) funds the establishment of two centers and five pilot projects using Next-Generation Sequencing technologies. Recent advances in technology have radically lowered the costs and increased the speed of genome sequencing such that within the next five years, decoding the genome of any patient will be as commonplace as diagnostic X-ray. Because of the massive amounts of data generated from such Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), genome science is undergoing a second revolution. To facilitate and participate in this revolution, PGFI announced the establishment of two internal centers for large-scale projects targeting translational and personalized genomics.
These centers are the Center for Translational and Personalized Genomics of NSAIDs (PI: G. FitzGerald) and the Center for Translational and Personalized Genomics of Inherited Retinal Degenerations (PI: E. Pierce). The two centers were selected by an external peer review process from an open proposal solicitation to the Penn community. The PGFI will invest a total of $5 million over three years in NGS equipment ($2 Million) and projects ($3 Million) focusing on applications of NGS to health and disease.
The competition revealed a great need for NGS technology access at Penn and the PGFI will provide pilot funding ($200,000 over three years) for five other projects that tackle challenging problems in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (PIs: M. Reilly, D. Rader), African integrative genomics (PI: S. Tishkoff), ocular cancers (PI: A. Ganguly), autism spectrum disorders (PIs: M. Bucan, T. Abel), and cancer genomics.
Related: Professional Development Workshops |
